


i understand north, but i struggle with left

by antarcticas



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Coping, Dark, Dark Zuko (Avatar), Depression, Fire Lord Zuko, Friendship, Gen, Gen Work, Loneliness, Mental Health Issues, Murder, Non-Graphic Violence, Not Compliant with Avatar Comics, Platonic Relationships, Stress Relief, Zuko (Avatar)-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:27:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27934612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antarcticas/pseuds/antarcticas
Summary: The war ends. The world is saved. Zuko is crowned Fire Lord.And then a sixteen-year-old boy is forced to rule a nation, even the stars against him.
Relationships: Aang & Zuko (Avatar), Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), Katara & Zuko (Avatar), Mai & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka & Zuko (Avatar), Suki & Zuko (Avatar), The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar), Toph Beifong & Zuko, Ty Lee & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 92





	1. Chapter 1

There is a time, after assuming the throne, that Zuko feels awfully, terribly, alone. 

He had Mai— but Mai needs to be her own person, not saddled down to a throne, so he loses her so that he may one day find her again, not entrap her. He had Aang, but he had to traverse the rest of the nations— he had Katara and Sokka who had to go back home. He had Ty Lee, the light of his childhood, in a strange way, who is here and yet distant. He had Toph, the sister he wished he could have, who needed to finish coming into her proper own. 

Even Uncle Iroh, his guiding point, the man who had spurred him on for the past few years, his real father . . . even he had left Zuko alone, ready to go to Ba Sing Se and his teashop. And Zuko cannot begrudge his father love and peace after the life he has waged upon the world, after he failed to bring down a city and then released it from his niece’s clutches. He cannot. 

But sometimes . . . he feels so absolutely worthless. He has power in this palace he can barely grasp on to, nobles who obey him with saccharine smiles, and sycophants on top of sycophants, people who burn, but it feels very shallow. It feels as though all that he has ever wanted failed to come into being, shattered at the seams, and he is left with threads of an unusable tapestry. 

He wishes he had Uncle Iroh. 

He does have Suki— Suki who guards the palace, who checks in with him and ensures that he’s alright, who seems to see him as more than a king of the realm, who understands that he is human. Sometimes he thinks that Suki is the only person who understands him, and the reality of being a leader. Suki understands that his person must fall for the love of a nation, who understands that his biting words are the result of days without sleep and not hatred. Suki is there, but Suki is busy, and Suki is his friend and she takes so much time taking care of him and— he still feels alone. 

So then, Zuko has Azula. 

He does not quite know how to deal with her. She is in the asylum, and she is absolutely crazy. And yet he finds it so easy to talk to her, to someone who understands where all these deep, dark parts of him stem from. 

Sometimes he can hold Azula’s crazed gaze in a half-lit room, and though he still feels alone, he feels understood. He feels like the words he says through empty ears can come back around and resound through his brain. 

Still, the loneliness does not recede. There is something to be said for ruling a country at sixteen, for owning your birthright, and feeling as though you’ve stolen something great.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I say dark Zuko, I don't just mean mentally. I mean that young rulers do bad things that are worthy to explore. Zuko is a sixteen-year-old in a world with plenty of political repercussions, but few personal ones.


	2. Chapter 2

## it should be easy, to be the dragon

Zuko is the Fire Lord. The entire world knows his name. The people speak it. They breathe it.

He knows that Azula will always know him best. Azula always lies, but Azula always does so with a purpose— Azula lies because she knows which words will hurt the most, which words will drill their way into his ribcage and become a cold, dark stone there. 

Even this Azula, the one who had shot lightning at him, knows him best. She knows the blood which runs through his veins and matches hers. She knows what he is doing. She knows the workings of the palace. She knows he is alone. 

Sometimes he sits in her room with her and looks at the chains on her arms for a long, long time. 

Most of the time, she’s silent. 

Today, she’s not. She doesn’t stare at his eyebags or worn robes with anger— she seems curious, shocked, and perhaps a bit understanding. The corner of her mouth quakes. “You always cared so much about being a good person, Zuzu.”

He doesn’t move.

“You never understood. I think you understand now. Being a leader,” she drags out, “requires sacrifice.”

He thinks about the bed he never sleeps in, the burnt walls of his study, and the way he’s sick of slamming his swords into walls. “I’ve sacrificed enough.”

“It never ends. It’s not supposed to.”

“What did you sacrifice?” he asks tightly. “Look at you. You gave up all of yourself for power and it left you here. You’re at my mercy.”

“I’m not,” she says.

“You’re not,” he admits. “But you’ve given up.”

“I can find myself in your ruin,” Azula’s smiles are with saber-shark teeth. “I can do it from here. All I have to do is watch you.”

Zuko gets up and leaves. He slams the door of her prison cell— her adorned, crimson,  _ bloody  _ prison cell— and makes his way to the other side of the palace, to where he’s kept. They are kept apart to keep Azula safe. They are kept apart because he wants a lot of things, but he does not want Azula’s death. 

He does not want her blood on his hands. He knows she does not think the same. He punches his fist into a stone pillar. His knuckles don’t bleed. He does it again. This time they do. 

He does it again, and again, and again. Rivulets of blood flow down his wrist, down his robes, through the thick fabric, around all the scars he has earned and given himself. It isn’t enough. None of it is enough. 

He is ruination. 


	3. Chapter 3

# you want a better story. who wouldn't?

“I haven’t seen you in a while, Uncle.”

Iroh looks around the room, at the Fire Lord’s throne, where Zuko is sitting— and looks, almost, uncomfortable. Zuko knows that for ages, he thought this seat was his birthright. And yet he has never sat on it, and now looks at his _son—_ years and years younger than him— seated on it, golden and glorious. 

Zuko can almost feel the very moment that his uncle realizes the bitter, terrible truth of the tiles he has handed his nephew. The Dragon of the West has played the past five years like a game, first on Zuko’s ship and then through the trials of tribulations of the Avatar’s journey. He has loved Zuko, as perhaps more than a nephew. But love has not stood in the way of the larger game— the greater good— and then in the way of what he owes to himself. 

“I’m sorry, Prince Zuko.”

“It’s Fire Lord,” Zuko says. It is not without a sharp undertone. This is not because he is angry at his uncle. It is because he has slowly, surely been carving out a place for himself in a ruthless nest of vipers, on top of the very world, and that is the only title he will answer to now. 

It may make his personal relationships stumble and then fall apart, but he has choices to make. And now he knows what Aang must have felt like, in the stories the Avatar has told him. 

The choice between one’s attachments and one’s duty is hard to accept, but there is always only one correct answer. 

“Of course,” Iroh swallows, and Zuko’s flames jump up. They refuse to scald him, but even that— just barely. “I’ve heard you and Lady Mai have separated.”

“Yes,” he says. He hates trivial talk, but romance is something that all people feel emboldened to discuss. The topic is, for whatever reason, inherently personal. He doesn’t know if he feels that it is. It’s pragmatic. It all is. “She needed to be free.”

“And you don’t?”

“I have everything I’ve ever wanted,” Zuko blinks. His eyebags feel heavy, as do his hands, as though he is truly carrying the weight of the sky— he is really carrying the peace of all the nations in his burnt, scarred hands. 

Iroh looks at him as though to disagree, but then steps away. Zuko knows why— if he calls out the lie, he will have to face his own demons. There are no winners in war. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title inspired by Richard Siken's explanation for his 2020 poem Landscapes. "I tried to understand what these things were and how I was related to them. Thermostat. Agriculture. Cherries Jubilee. Metamodernism. I understand North, but I struggle with left. Describing the world is easier than finding a place in it."


End file.
